Subject
Re: call for proposals re VN & Music (fwd)
Date
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
VN and Music, of all things? But he was much more sympathetic to painting,
as another artistic medium, than he ever was to music. If we are to
believe him -- and why should he lie in this particular instance since
it's not really flattering at all? -- he didn't care for music, and
thus was a "freak" in his own family, which was musically inclined (as
were, apparently his wife and his son.) Am I missing something? Can one
really discern musical influences in someone who apparently did not treat
music as anything but a background noise and hated jazz with an almost
incomprehensible vehemence? Sure his prose was "musical" at times, but I
think it may be a mistake to confuse "prose musicality" with "music
musicality." One can have a good ear for one, I believe, and, at the same
time, a poor one for the other. I think the premise of the series is very
sound, and everything it says about modernism is quite accurate, but it
does not mean -- does it? -- that every modernist was affected equally by
other media. Joyce and music, definitely. Pound and music, absolutely.
Nabokov and music? I doubt it...
Galya Diment
University of Washington.
VN and Music, of all things? But he was much more sympathetic to painting,
as another artistic medium, than he ever was to music. If we are to
believe him -- and why should he lie in this particular instance since
it's not really flattering at all? -- he didn't care for music, and
thus was a "freak" in his own family, which was musically inclined (as
were, apparently his wife and his son.) Am I missing something? Can one
really discern musical influences in someone who apparently did not treat
music as anything but a background noise and hated jazz with an almost
incomprehensible vehemence? Sure his prose was "musical" at times, but I
think it may be a mistake to confuse "prose musicality" with "music
musicality." One can have a good ear for one, I believe, and, at the same
time, a poor one for the other. I think the premise of the series is very
sound, and everything it says about modernism is quite accurate, but it
does not mean -- does it? -- that every modernist was affected equally by
other media. Joyce and music, definitely. Pound and music, absolutely.
Nabokov and music? I doubt it...
Galya Diment
University of Washington.